Question

We have multi-part install that needs a reboot to continue.

We added a RunOnce entry under HKLM to automatically re-launch “setup.exe” after a reboot.

One quirky result of adding setup.exe to RunOnce is that “Windows Shell” won’t load until setup.exe terminates.

How can we make Windows continue to load “Windows Shell” even if setup.exe has not yet terminated?

PS: We can’t make use of the Run key because of elevation blocking.

Answer 1

what you can do is put your “setup.exe” at this HKCU this will let you setup.exe run
and wont block "Windows Shell" from loading

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

and in your case

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce